‘Finding Mr. Wong is an important contribution to a growing body of writings that illuminate the lives of people silenced or otherwise negated by myopic history.’

‘Susan Crean was born and raised in Toronto. She studied and traveled in Europe in the sixties, and acquired two degrees in art history. She worked as a freelance journalist and television producer through the seventies and began writing full-time in 1981. She has been a member of the editorial collective of This Magazine since 1979. She was also Chair of The Writers’ Union from 1991-92.’ Susan has published seven books including ‘The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr’ that was nominated for a Governor General’s award and won the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (B.C. Book Prizes) in 2002.https://writersunion.ca/member/susan-crean

Heidi Greco’s Flightpaths is a captivating exposition into the story of Amelia Earhart (July 1897), the pilot, celebrity author and women’s rights advocate who disappeared in her bid to fly around the world over the equator in July 1937. This year, Heidi’s book commemorates the birth and the disappearance of that iconic woman.

In Flightpaths, Heidi takes us on a soulful and poetic flight of imagination exploring various possibilities in the scenario of Amelia’s disappearance. On the way, the reader experiences tiny explosions of delicate expressions where landing on ‘Howland, the tiny island’ is landing ‘on a hummingbird’s nest’ (dead reckoning, page 18); Amelia’s ‘fears of drowning’ rise like ‘a brook swelling after spring rains – the sweep of water across the window’s glass – rising, rising.’ (july 3, 20). And, at some places, it’s too compelling to just fly over:

‘Not just a mere dog.

More a man than the one
who murdered him.’
(remembering james the ferocious, poisoned, 36)

‘he said he’d buy me a plane
All I had to do
was say yes I do, I do,
All i had to do just
Do be do be do.’
(Gp and me; our story, 42)

Heidi Greco has published a novella and five collections of poetry including ‘The Amelia Poems’ (Lipstick Press 2009) chapbook that Flightpaths builds upon. And in this, poems and creative prose items are woven into the mystery of the plot.

Most interesting aspect of this book is that the author takes the persona of her subject in order to explore it. The intriguing first-person fictionalized biographical narrative was earlier used by author Susan Crean to explore the life of another iconic woman in The Laughing One: A Journey to Emily Carr (HarperCollins 2001), and, it also had a precursor (Opposite Contraries: The Unknown Journals of Emily Carr and Other Writings). Susan’s The Laughing One was short-listed for three awards in 2001 including Governor General’s, and, it won the 2002 B.C. Book Prize and 2002 Hubert Evans. To me, these are good omens for Heidi’s Flightpaths.

This 96-page book makes for an effortless, smooth and fast read as it references herstory/history. Ordering information is below.

The above image was being safe-kept in a folder named ‘ImagesForArticles’ with over twenty others, and that folder was not to be opened till perhaps 2020- yet here it is.

Last year, i copied this image from Facebook where it was being shared by my friends from around the world as a positive intervention in favor of a woman’s right to use contraceptives, the need for women to be enlightened, and as a way to resolve poverty. I again encountered it last week, this time it was the first item in a video collection of images about ‘today’s modern society’. In that context and if taken as irony it could work but no guarantees, so I stopped and made a comment:
Me: Pertinent, except for the first item that’s racist, classist and affirms colonial perspectives.
Friend: Are you saying that those issues don’t exist today?

Many interesting points came out during discussion; some required more time including the one about names that had also come up at the November 20th event at VG Playroom in Surrey. It expresses the thought that there are perhaps too many unfamiliar and difficult-to-pronounce names for the reader to deal with in both my novels, and if those could be made easier or replaced with more familiar names from the same cultural context, it’ll help the reader stay with the story.

Those in favor of Merkel’s call for a Burqa Ban not only include the extreme right, right and center of the political spectrum but they also include a large section of white and brown feminists, leftists, atheists, and other shades of ‘progressives’. That’s a lot of my organic community coming out in support of, or not opposing, the legislated use of burqa being implemented by various conservative governments.

I am not in favor of burqa/purdah, but i’m dead against governments who are legislating or calling for a ban on it in Europe, America, Canada, Australia, and in the similar etcetras because all the burqa ban moves in these places are used to fan the ‘national security’ hysteria to take people’s attention away from the real issues of disparity and prejudice they face, and allows these governments to continue their brutal aggression and interference in various Asian and African countries. The burqa bans further stigmatize Muslim women and Islam, and, validate the undercurrent notion that the legislated removal of burqa in the ‘democratic’ societies would or could lead to the liberation of Muslim women. This is sick, and sickening.